The UK is cracking down on unapproved speech, writes Craig Murray, in a short article reflecting on the border-crossing interrogations of British journalists Johanna Ross, Vanessa Beeley, and, most recently, Kit Klarenberg, as well as the three police visits to his own home and his four-month jail sentence for his journalistic work.
A new National Security Bill is before the Parliament, which would make it illegal for a journalist to possess or publish classified information, he writes.
Under the guise of stopping child abuse imagery, the UK’s Online Safety Bill would require social media platforms to remove nearly any form of content demanded by the government under claims that it is illegal.
And the Public Order Act will give police the authority to essentially ban any protest they want to stop.
Put together with the ongoing slow-motion murder of Julian Assange in British prison, these policies and actions show a new regime of restrictions on liberty in the UK.
“To be a dissident in the UK, or indeed the ‘West’ today is to see, every single day, your friends persecuted and to see the walls close in upon yourself,” Murray concludes. “A unified political class ... is hurtling us towards fascism. That now seems to me undeniable.” https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/05/the-twilight-of-freedom/